World’s highest tides in Nova Scotia wash over Canada’s premiers

By Bill Mann

One thing Canada’s premiers could agree on in their sometimes contentious Winnipeg summit meetings the past few days: The Bay of Fundy, which has the world’s highest tides, is an amazing place — and it should be named one of the world’s Seven Natural Wonders.

You have to witness these amazing tides in person to truly appreciate them. And relatively tourist-free, friendly Nova Scotia, I can attest, is a great place to spend time, tides or no.

To see big ships sailing by on Minas Basin (an extension of the larger Bay of Fundy) at our friend’s vacation place and then, six hours later, see nothing but red mudflats for miles is something you can’t witness anywhere else on earth. In pleasant, nearby Wolfville, NS, large fishing boats sitting on the mudflat at the docks during each low tide.

Canada’s provincial leaders agreed at their annual meeting in Winnipeg to support a bid to make the bay in Atlantic Canada one of seven new wonders of nature.

New Brunswick leader Shawn Graham and Darrell Dexter of Nova Scotia presented a video to the Premiers showing Fundy’s famous high tides and picturesque coastline.

The Nova Scotia bay is one of 28 finalists — and the only one from Canada — in a worldwide campaign by the New 7 Wonders Foundation, a Switzerland-based group. Dexter says the premiers have agreed to make statements in their legislatures and encourage residents in their provinces to vote for the bay online. The new wonders are to be announced Nov. 11, 2011.

If you get the chance to witness these amazing tides in person — and a wave called the “tidal bore” that heralds each high tide there — I’m pretty sure how you’ll vote.